


Pour une fille d'Ottawa

by sarahcakes613



Series: The Cohen Files [7]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canada, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cause that's a tag apparently, F/F, Gratuitous Consumption of Fried Dough, Ice Skating, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-10-04 01:09:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17294801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahcakes613/pseuds/sarahcakes613
Summary: Yara sells fried dough pastries to hungry ice-skaters. Daenerys is a hungry ice-skater who buys fried dough pastries. It's basically an ode to Canadian fried pastries disguised as a meet-cute.





	Pour une fille d'Ottawa

**Author's Note:**

> I was massively inspired by the incredibly fluffy Teen Wolf fic Hold My Hand, I'll Hold Yours by lavenderlotion. The world needs more skating on the canal fic.

_Please walk by me again_  
_With a drink in your hand_  
_And your legs all white_  
_From the winter_

Dear Heather - Leonard Cohen

 

It’s only the end of the first weekend of Winterlude, and already Yara wants to kill someone. Possibly her brother, who had voluntold her as the booth operator for the duration of the festival. It’s below freezing and there’s not much in the way of windbreaks along this stretch of the Canal, and her space heater’s doing its best but its best isn’t worth much in the face of a wind chill factor.

It wouldn’t be so bad if she weren’t so busy and could take a few minutes to just stand with her hands hovering over the fryer. The Canal’s been open a month already, but the festival’s got everyone and their mother crowding the ice, and they all want a bit of deep-fried goodness.

There’s only about twenty minutes left before she shutters up for the night, and the line is still easily a dozen deep, so she pushes aside thoughts of fratricide for the moment and focuses on keeping orders straight in her head. She’s got two Triple Trips up next and she holds her breath as she spreads the peanut butter. She knows if that rancid peanut oil odour gets in her nose she’ll be smelling nothing else for the rest of the night.

She’s just finished clearing the crowd and is facing the fryers when she hears the rustle of snowpants and the low murmur of conversation pause in front of her booth.

“If you know what you want, holler it out,” she calls over her shoulder. “This is the last batch for the day.”

“Viens ici! Tell the madame what flavour you want. One at a time, please!” Yara turns and sees a woman about her age with three school-aged boys, all elbows and flushed cheeks. She is petite, a few inches shorter than Yara, with silver-blonde hair spilling out from under her toque.

“Je veux un érable, s’il tu plaît!” The first boy calls out. “Et moi aussi!” The second boy adds, turning to the smallest of the three boys. “Vincent, qu’est-ce que tu veux?”

The third boy is staring at the menu board with fierce concentration writ across his face. “Une pomme et cannelle, merci.” He lisps, and Yara’s heart thaws just the tiniest bit at this boy who sounds just like her brother did at that age.

She turns her attention to the woman with them. “Et toi, maman?” She asks, and a look of confusion flashes across the woman’s face, a slight wrinkle in the corners of her eyes and a scrunch up of her delicate nose.

“Oh non, non!” She laughs, and Yara’s never understood the comparison of laughter to bells before tonight. “I am not their maman, I am their skating instructeur!” She pronounces it the French way, and Yara admires the way her mouth shapes around the word.

“What do you recommend?” She smiles at Yara, and her entire face is a beam of sunshine and Yara is so completely fucked.

“Well, you can’t go wrong with the classic.” Yara shrugs. She suggests it partly so she won’t have to open up more than a couple of the ingredient bins, and partly because she wants to know what this woman would look like with cinnamon sugar dusting her lips. Also, she might want to lick cinnamon sugar off this woman’s lips. Yup, she’s fucked.

If her hand trembles a bit when handing Ms. Cinnamon Sugar her change, well, she can blame it on the cold.

\-----

“Wait, I thought you hated working the festival? I specifically worked the schedule so you wouldn’t have to work this weekend after you spent an hour bitching me out before last weekend.” Theon is staring at Yara, brow furrowed as he tries to work out what her deal is.

“Aw, baby brother, you shouldn’t have! It’s no problem, really. Happy to do it.” She waves a hand at him, aiming for casual and breezy and landing somewhere around awkward finger guns. He cocks an eyebrow in doubt and she shrugs. “If you switch me back, I’ll cover our next two pizza nights and write that Comms essay you’ve been bitching about.”

Theon’s eyes widen and his grin tells her he knows something is up, but he wisely keeps his mouth shut and changes the schedule in her favour.

She does see them again, but it is earlier in the evening, and she is too busy to give any time to wooing Ms. Cinnamon Sugar, who orders the same thing again. If she takes a minute to watch her daintily eating her pastry while talking to her students, well, whatever. Eyes flash up to meet hers and she flushes and spins around to the fryers, not turning back until she’s sure they’re gone.

\-----

The last day of Winterlude is also the first statutory holiday of the year and Yara is slammed with customers the entire day. Lunch is bites of a plain Tail between orders, and by the time sunset creeps in, she is exhausted and back to hating her brother.

The last hour is mercifully quiet, the family crowd mostly gone home for supper and the college crowd more interested in getting a head start on their Reading Week partying. She is just considering cashing out early when she sees two children speeding towards her, a third not too far behind.

“Vincent! Rémy! Denys! Faites attention! Va lentement!” Her cinnamon sugar sunshine goddess is behind the boys, herding them in the direction of her booth. The boys crowd up around her counter, debating flavour choices with each other in rapid-fire French. Their instructor glides up behind them and smiles at Yara.

“I am so glad you are still open!” She throws her arms around all three boys at once. “We must have one last pâtisserie to celebrate your last lesson, eh?” She gets three fervent nods in response.

The boys order, and Yara waits a beat for a fourth order, but the woman shakes her head. “I have not yet decided. Please, go ahead with theirs.”

She shrugs, and readies the pastries, three Choco-Noisettes this time. She hands them down to the boys, who immediately begin to eat, a muffled “merci” coming from each of them through a mouthful of dough.

“Do you know what you’d like yet?” She turns back to their instructor. She smiles again at Yara, a quieter smile, more of a quirk of the lips.

“Can’t go wrong with the classic, oui?” Her eyes seem to be glowing violet in the shadows thrown off by the lights on the bridge. “And perhaps also your number?”

Yara’s cinnamon sugar goddess is named Daenerys, and it turns out that licking sugar off her lips is just as delicious as Yara had imagined.

**Author's Note:**

> French translations:  
> Fic title: for a girl from Ottawa  
> Viens ici - come here  
> Je veux un érable, s’il tu plaît -I'd like maple, please  
> Moi aussi - me too  
> Qu’est-ce que tu veux? - what do you want?  
> Une pomme et cannelle - Apple and cinnamon  
> Et toi, maman? - and you, mum?  
> Faites attention - pay attention  
> Va lentement - go slowly
> 
> Also, don't let your sister (or anyone else) write your essays for you. Do your own work, kids.


End file.
